A War Like Ours

A liar…
Three weeks ago, James Maxwell’s wife died in a car accident, but he hasn’t been able to tell his five-year old daughter the heartbreaking truth behind her mother’s death. Instead, he packs them up and leaves for a summer resort in upstate New York to spend a few peaceful weeks and to gradually break the news. But a spirited and outspoken maid at the resort has figured out his secret.
A hater…
After witnessing her mother’s violent death at the hands of her stepfather, Madison Smith has turned aimless and bitter toward the world—men, in particular. Her dead-end job at the local resort and her convenient girlfriend barely keep Madison from falling apart. When she meets James, however, she’s driven to protect his child from the darkness she sees inside him.
A forbidden kiss…
But Madison doesn’t expect to find that very darkness irresistible. Drowning in guilt and memories, neither does James expect to be drawn to the sharp-witted woman who has made his life miserable. When their tempers flare, a brutal kiss triggers a need that blurs the lines of hate and desire. As their lust spins out of control, they must decide if their attraction is worth fighting for or if love is the real enemy.
Please Note: This book is intended for mature audience. 18+ ONLY.

About Saffron A. Kent

Romance Writer and Reader. Coffee Addict. White Russian Drinker. Imaginary Ballet Dancer. Wanna-be Poet. Lana Del Ray & Gillian Flynn Worshiper.
My stories are grey-shaded and NC-17. I write what I love to read. And what I love to read is always twisted and angsty and emotional. My characters desperately need therapy. They tend to kiss a lot too, among other naughty things.
I LOVE to chat with readers about reading and writing so come follow me!

Triton

Triton: A Little Mermaid RetellingAria—I teach mermaid fitness at a ritzy hotel next to the Naval Amphibious Base. I know better than to let one of those famous frogmen chase my tail. But in a moment of weakness, I submit to Erik, a tattooed badass Navy SEAL. After one night of incredible passion, I can’t stop thinking about his cocky ways and his dirty mouth.
Then I get the opportunity to train to be the first female Navy SEAL.
When I show up on the first day of training, I’m horrified to realize that Erik is my BUD/S instructor. He’s the only person who stands in the way of me achieving my dream.
I’m no quitter. He can taunt me, tease me, and run me ragged, but I’ll never ring that bell.
Erik—Aria is the most incredible woman I’ve ever met. She won the gold medal for synchronized swimming and she looks like a little mermaid the way she moves underwater. Once I find out that the sexy redhead is teaching aquatic classes next to my base, I vow to do anything to make her mine.
After our mind-blowing night together, she vanishes. I ask around and learn she went away to train. I assume it’s for another synchro competition.
I’m dead wrong.
She shows up in BUD/S as part of the first class to let in women. I’m head instructor of Phase One, and there’s no way in hell I will lower the standards of my Team to please the brass and make a political statement.
It doesn’t matter how much I want her because she’s forbidden to me now. I’m the teacher and she’s my student. She will obey my every command.
She can try to pass hell week but she will fail.
I’m a Navy SEAL, a Triton, a god of the sea.
And she will never be part of my world.

99¢ for a limited time!

Isabella—Grady Williams is a national treasure, the youngest living Medal of Honor recipient, America’s scarred superhero. With tattooed arms sculpted from carrying M-16s, this bad boy has girls begging from sea to shining sea to get a piece of his action.
When my father squanders away my college fund, I make a deal with this dirty-talking Devil Dog—I will pretend to be Grady’s girlfriend for the Marine Corps Ball, and my dad will write Grady’s war memoir.
Grady is fearless. Hell, this badass jumped on a grenade to save his fellow Marines! As much as I crave him, I refuse to allow myself to become addicted to a dangerous man who will detonate my heart.
Grady—Isabella Cuesta is an angel who can see beyond my mangled skin, a pawn used to repay her father’s debt, a woman who makes me feel like a man instead of a monster.
But I no longer believe in fairy tales.
She’s mine until our contract ends. I’ll take her hard and rough, listen to all her hopes and fears, lay down my life to protect her.
This beauty will never let herself love a dangerous man like me—a man who has killed, a man who runs towards gunfire, a man who never backs down from a fight.
But without her love, I’m not a man—I’ll remain forever a beast.

About Alana Albertson

Alana Albertson is an award winning Latina author, the former President of Romance Writers of America’s Contemporary Romance, Chick Lit, and Young Adult chapters. She holds a Masters of Education from Harvard and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Stanford. A recovering professional ballroom dancer, Alana currently writes new adult romantic suspense, young adult, and contemporary romance. She lives in San Diego, California, with her husband, two sons, and five dogs. When she’s not spending her time needlepointing, dancing, or saving dogs from high kill shelters through her rescue Pugs N Roses, she can be found watching episodes of House Hunters, Homeland, or Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team.

WILLCassie is more than a friend with benefits, and I love helping her overcome her shyness in the bedroom. Now our teaching assistant has his eye on her too and all my primitive instincts are taking over. Maybe I'm being a bit possessive, but what have I got to lose?CASSIEI told Will that once should be enough, but he's determined to make me scream over and over again... I feel truly sexy for the first time in my life, but with a new wager on the line I'd better think twice before falling for my best friend.This 35,000-word sequel to the hot new adult romance novella ONCE SHOULD BE ENOUGH can be read as a standalone--but you might want to sit down (on a towel). If you like your romance swift, sharp and sizzling, then DON'T THINK TWICE!

“Good job, everyone,” praised Rodney. “Now we’re ready to cool down. Lie down on your mat in corpse pose for Savasana.” “That won’t be hard,” I muttered.Cassie chuckled beside me. I flopped onto my back, my arms and legs akimbo. My heart rate slowed with Rodney’s low, musical recommendations to press my spine into the floor and breathe through my eyelids.Every part of my body felt exhausted but energized at the same time, but he must have been trained in some kind of yoga hypnosis thing, because when I came back to myself, the room was empty and Cassie sat watching me, hugging her knees to her chest.“You fell asleep.”“Holy shit.” Really?“Namaste.” With her palms pressed together at her sternum, she bobbed her chin down and giggled. Little tendrils of damp hair curled around her pink face, the messy dark knot flagging on top of her head. She hadn’t changed yet, her bare arms now wrapped around her bare legs like an unadorned Cassie pretzel—with salt.“Okay, you win. Yoga is hard,” I admitted.“Told ya.” As she unfolded herself to kneel on the mat on her hands and knees, I hardened, too.“You were right, I was wrong.”She grinned. “It’s just stretching, right?” She rolled her back like an inchworm, arching and curving sinuously, back and forth. I wanted nothing more than to string up a hammock in the small of her back and spend a summer there.“Ooof!” She straddled me, catching me by surprise.She landed right over my waist, the damp vee between her legs pressed into the sliver of skin between where my shirt had ridden up and my sweats hung on my hips. Fucking hell, I could feel how hot and wet she was. Her sweat mixed with her unique, musky scent, and it went straight to my cock like some kind of olfactory Viagra. Damn pheromones.“Where’d everybody go?” I asked, my hands reflexively going to her hips as she shimmied on top of me.“Last class in here for the night.” She shivered a little as my thumbs traced along the dent of her hips. “We’re all—oh, I love your hands—alone.”“Do you remember what happened last time we showered together?”She bit her lower lip and nodded shyly. My dick was rock hard and aching for her. I fought the urge to pull her down on me hard and grind against her, instead forcing my hands down onto the mat.I wanted her. I wanted to kiss her until she was breathless. I wanted to see just how strong and flexible yoga had made her. I wanted to find out if her nipples tasted salty from sweat and if her clit had plumped up from those tight little shorts. I wanted to fuck her right into corpse pose.But I wanted her to make the first move. I knew I’d come on too strong before but as sexy as her self-discovery was, I was just the guide, not the explorer. Fuck, I was happy to be that. I would program the GPS and provide a back-up map and guidebook. I’d even hold up a fucking sign like a dorky walking tour group leader in Europe, but she had to decide which sights to see.“Will?” She leaned over, her hands pressed against the floor on either side of my head. Heat radiated from her skin, shimmering toward me like a desert oasis.“Yeah?”“Wanna get naked with me again?”

Nikky Kaye is almost my real name. I’m a former Film professor who likes more than her movies to be black and white. Sadly, the world doesn’t work that way. I have worked with movie stars, Ivy League brainiacs, and the United Nations—all of which means that I’m familiar with ass-kissing, power struggles, greed and faking it. In my spare time I parent 5 year-old twin boys, serve on the board of an independent cinema, and run a medical consulting company.

Cora Matthews grew up with the Adams boys, twin brothers and best friends who wouldn’t let anything come between them except for one thing—her. One of them became her best friend, the other, her fiancé.She always knew she’d wind up marrying one of them, and Jacob Adams is the very epitome of Mister Right. At least he is up until he fails to show up for their wedding day. Not that Cora realizes it. At first.As Jacob’s best man, and identical twin, Matt makes a split second decision, but one that will affect the three of their lives forever—he steps in to take his brother’s place. In front of the altar, exchanging vows with the woman he’s secretly been in love with for years.Cora eventually finds out about the groom swap. The morning after the wedding. As if realizing she just slept with her fiance’s brother wasn’t disturbing enough, she’s forced to confront her feelings for Matt Adams she thought she’d buried years ago.Matt’s wrong for her. In every way. But through the course of her real honeymoon with her fake husband, she starts to uncover truths both Adams brothers were hoping to keep hidden, for opposite reasons. One to protect himself, the other to protect her.She married the wrong brother, but what if he’s been the right one all along?

CHAPTER ONEMattHe was wrong for her.That was the only thought running through my head as I rechecked every inch of the church. So completely wrong for her. This latest disappearing act, the most recent proof. He’d skipped out on her before, but today was different.Today, they were supposed to get married. Today, Cora Matthews would become Cora Adams. She’d have my last name. But not in the way I’d hoped for—not that I hadn’t accepted that years ago.She’d chosen him. My brother. My twin brother. She’d chosen him forever ago, and that was that. She’d been as good as Mrs. Jacob Adams since the day Cora Matthews first showed up in our lives eighteen years ago.At least until today, when Cora was going to be marching toward an empty altar in fifteen minutes if I didn’t find the supposed Mister Right. Jacob wasn’t the right one—for a dozen reasons I could list—but he was who she wanted and he’d done his best to convince her she was all he wanted too. But I knew better.My brother had always been indulged; being the “firstborn” son—by a whole three minutes—to a wealthy family has a way of doing that. The problem arose when the boy grew into a man who wanted to be equally indulged in all sorts of ways that a wife would likely frown upon. Jacob wasn’t the right one for her. I knew that. Hell, I think even he knew that when he surfaced from his self-adoring stupor every so often.Not that I was the right one for Cora either. I was just as wrong for her as Jacob was, but in a different way. See, where he’d always loved her too little, I’d loved her too much. So I’d kept my secret for years and watched the girl I loved fall in love with the brother I’d shared a womb with for thirty-eight weeks. The brother I loved and looked after, despite his faults.God knew I had a shit ton of my own.That was why I was about to start tearing this church apart in order to find him. I was looking after his interests as well as Cora’s, because even though he had a piss-poor way of showing it, he loved her. In his own way. If you could call what Jacob felt for anyone love. In a way, it was love, but in another way, it was the opposite.“Where the hell’s Jacob?” The senior Adams, also known as Dad, asked when I circled into the lobby again, hoping my missing brother had magically appeared. He was holding my brother’s tux zipped up in an expensive bag and looking at me like I was failing the task of keeping track of my brother as I’d failed all the rest presented to me in life.Where the hell’s Jacob? How many times had I asked myself that question? How many times had I probably known or had a good idea where he was?“He’s back in one of the church offices waiting. Just got here.” I had to slow myself down when I heard the words wobble. It had been years since I’d stuttered over a word, and now was not the time to resurrect that old habit. “I’ll take it down to him.”I grabbed the tux from Dad and backed down the hall, trying to ignore the stuffed sanctuary and the orchestra playing some song that sounded more fitting for a funeral than a wedding.That was what this was about to become if I didn’t do something. Whether it would be my dad murdering me for flunking my best man responsibilities of keeping track of the groom, or me murdering Jacob when I finally found his pathetic ass after doing this to Cora on today of all days, someone was going to die.“That tux isn’t going to put itself on a groom, Matt. Get after it.” Dad motioned me down the hall before he marched toward the sanctuary like he was ready to get this over with.He wasn’t thrilled about the wedding. Didn’t exactly approve of the match. It wasn’t that he didn’t love Cora, because he did, like a daughter. He just didn’t find her fitting as a daughter-in-law, especially to his prized firstborn who was incapable of doing wrong. He probably wouldn’t have cared so much if she was marrying me, which was disconcerting to say the least. The only person who’d approve of Cora and me ending up together was my dad.As I jogged down the hall, carrying a found tux to a missing groom, Dad’s last words replayed through my mind. That tux isn’t going to put itself on a groom.A groom.A groom.My plan was already forming as I ducked into a dark church office, my fingers working my tie loose. Jacob wasn’t just my twin brother—he was my identical twin brother.I was maybe a little bit taller and he was maybe a little bit fuller, but not enough that anyone would notice. Not enough, I hoped, that Cora would notice. She used to confuse us all the time when we were growing up together and still, on occasion, she’d mistake me for Jacob and Jacob for me. Like the last time I’d been at her and Jacob’s condo when she’d thrown a surprise party for him. I’d been talking with a group of old friends, she slid by me, found my hand, and gave it the briefest of squeezes. She’d thought I was Jacob. I knew that because she never touched me anymore. At least not on purpose. We used to be comfortable enough with each other that she’d hug me without thinking, but that changed when she and Jacob became a thing. An official thing.She didn’t touch me anymore, not even to nudge me for saying something stupid, which I said all too often in her presence. But that night, she’d touched me. And a year later, I could still remember the way her small hand felt falling into mine.Cora would be distracted today—nervous. I knew because she’d told me how panicked she was about standing in front of five hundred people. She’d be so distracted by trying to keep herself from passing out or hyperventilating, so would she really notice if the man standing across from her in front of that altar was me?I was banking on the chance that she wouldn’t, as I changed from my suit into Jacob’s tux as fast as humanly possible. The clock on the wall was fast, hopefully, or else I had two and a half minutes to get my ass up front so that when Cora started down the aisle, she’d have someone waiting for her.Someone who loved her.As I tied the shiny dress shoes, I tried to put aside all of the inner voices telling me how wrong this was. How utterly and unforgivably wrong this was. I knew it was wrong. I knew that. But it was just as wrong to do nothing. It was wrong to let Jacob ruin another moment for her. By doing something that I knew was wrong, I hoped I was ultimately doing the right thing.Maybe he wasn’t where I thought he was, hungover and waking up in some girl’s bed. Maybe he’d gotten into an accident or been kidnapped or . . . damn, then I’d feel like a real piece of shit for thinking the worst about my own brother. Maybe something legitimate had come up and he’d have some great explanation and I’d pull him aside to let him know I’d stepped in and no one besides us would know what had gone down.And maybe Jacob had decided to turn over a new leaf and not be such a selfish prick, I thought with a sigh.Pausing in front of the picture hanging beside the door, I adjusted the bowtie as best I could before tearing the door open and jogging down the hall. Jacob’s tux was a little big for me, and his shoes a little small, but those were minor discomforts compared to what my psyche was putting me through.The ring.Fuck.After sprinting back to the office, I wrestled the ring box out of the pocket of my jacket, along with my wallet and phone—just in case I didn’t make it back here anytime soon—then I kicked my suit behind a bookcase in the event that someone stumbled into the room to find an abandoned suit and started asking questions.My dad’s face was red by the time I made it inside the sanctuary, but when he saw me, his face relaxed and he smiled. It took me a moment to realize he wasn’t smiling at me—he was smiling at Jacob.Dad never really smiled at me too much. Smirks were more the way of it.“Where the hell’s Matt?” one of the groomsmen, Hunter, whispered when I passed.God, this church was stuffed to capacity. And hot. And lacking in oxygen.“Barfing up his guts,” I answered quietly, reminding myself that I was Jacob and needed to talk and sound like him.The groomsmen rocked with silent laughter. They were all Jacob’s friends; none were mine.“Go figure. We’re the ones drinking places dry, and it’s your brother, the DD, yacking his insides out today.”My shoulder lifted in the dismissive way Jacob’s did. “Some guys have all the luck.”“And some guys named Matt Adams have none,” Aaron, another groomsman, whispered up the line.Didn’t I know it?They didn’t make any more jokes or jeers at my expense because they knew better. Jacob and I might have seen things differently and been as unalike as two people could be, but we were twins. He stood up for me and vice versa. He had my back, I had his.As my current predicament proved.The orchestra broke into a new song—the "Wedding March". The collar of Jacob’s dress shirt felt like it was strangling me at the same time it felt like someone had just dialed up the temperature in the room by twenty degrees.What am I doing? Why am I doing it? Is it right? Or wrong?The answers to those questions didn’t have a chance to form because that was when I saw her. Like the thousands of times before, the world faded away when Cora Matthews walked into the room. When she started down the aisle, I swayed a little and had to step out of line to keep myself from toppling into the minister.“Easy there, big guy,” Hunter said under his breath, elbowing me. “Too late for cold feet. Bride is en route.”I wanted to tell him it wasn’t cold feet I had, but something else. It was the feeling of being so sure of something that the rest of the world seemed off-kilter. So sure of something that the rest of the world just didn’t make sense. I’d never been as certain of anything as I was about the woman walking toward me, about to marry me.Under false pretenses.I had to remind myself of that when Cora’s eyes found mine and her plastered-on smile crumbled behind a real one. She was smiling at me the way she smiled at him—like I was her world.Matthew Adams had never been her whole world, but unknown to her, she’d been mine. That was why I was standing here now, posing as my twin brother, as his fiancée took the final steps toward me. I was doing this for her because I knew she loved him, and I didn’t want to see her hurt again at my brother’s hand.Marry the woman you love, Matt, then let her spend the rest of her life with the man she loves.The orchestra was just playing its final chords when Cora stopped beside me, her eyes matching the real smile still on her face. God, she was beautiful.Too beautiful, I thought again, as I noticed the line of groomsmen appraising her with more than just casual regard. Cora had always been more than another one of the pretty girls; she was the standout. Every guy knew the type. The girl who shouldn’t be real, but there she was, passing you in the hallway every morning. The girl who’s noticed by every person she passes, male or female. She was so beautiful on the outside, few people took the time to get to know the beauty hiding underneath, but I had. I knew she was beautiful everywhere.Jacob. Channel Jacob, I reminded myself as everyone took a collective seat behind us.“Hey,” I whispered to her, winking.Hey? What a moron. Who says hey to the woman he’s about to marry when she stopped beside him looking so damn perfect. I couldn’t feel my lungs.“Hey,” she whispered back, like she didn’t think anything of it.Because, yeah, Jacob totally would have said hey to his bride like a moron.Cora had been versed in moron for practically two decades.As the minister started droning on about something I probably should have been paying attention to, I tuned out. This wasn’t my wedding. This was hers. This was his. So instead I watched Cora, memorizing every detail of her face as she stared at the man across from her, who loved her like she was both a poison and an antidote.When the pastor asked if I promised to love and cherish her, in sickness and in health, until death do us part, that was the easiest question I’d ever had to answer. It was the simplest part of this mess of a day.“I will.”

Nicole Williams is the New York Times and USATODAY bestselling author of contemporary and young adult romance, including the Crash and Lost & Found series. Her books have been published by HarperTeen and Simon & Schuster in both domestic and foreign markets, while she continues to self-publish additional titles. She is working on a new YA series with Crown Books (a division of Random House) as well. She loves romance, from the sweet to the steamy, and writes stories about characters in search of their happily even after. She grew up surrounded by books and plans on writing until the day she dies, even if it’s just for her own personal enjoyment. She still buys paperbacks because she’s all nostalgic like that, but her kindle never goes neglected for too long. When not writing, she spends her time with her husband and daughter, and whatever time’s left over she’s forced to fit too many hobbies into too little time.

Nicole is represented by Jane Dystel, of Dystel and Goderich Literary Agency.